“We both are with different people today and are comfortable with them. That bothers me. When we separated and Jim came into my life, I thought my love for him will always be different than it was for you, and I imagined you feeling the same way about Gena. It’s different, yes, but not as bad as I thought it’ll be, and that hurts me. You know what I mean? And it’s not even like one of us died. We’ve moved on so easily, Jake. How?”
Jake looks at her tenderly. Jake and Jill we used to call each other. If Jake was to tumble, Jill would tumble after is what we had agreed on.
“What happened to that love, Jake?”
In the sad, heartbreaking title story, an old couple relive their beautiful moments, while they await the inevitable; in other tales, a mother does the unthinkable to feed her starving children; a father’s blind love for his son causes nothing but anguish to him; an old man in desperate need of answers seeks counsel of a young boy; a child yearns for the love of her parents; a village landlord throws a feast to save his life; two couples struggle to understand love; a woman likes the idea of marriage but is afraid of men.
What Happened to That Love is a short story collection comprising 12 stories set in India and Australia that explore life, death, love, ache, greed, hope, destiny, alienation, fallacies, and the nature of rural and urban life, and the changes that come to us all.
‘Srinivasan possesses the astute eye and sensitive ear to catch the subtle shades of human emotions; his characters are believable and real, his themes engaging and profound. The voice carries echoes of Raymond Carver, but it is distinctly Srinivasan’s: compassionate but detached, probing and ironic, the gentle and sometimes grim humour effectively balancing the pathos. It is a rewarding collection to read.’
Dr. Kim Cheng Boey, Senior Lecturer, University of Newcastle, Australia
He can be reached at kailash.srinivasan@gmail.com
Monday, December 6, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
The Modern Imbeciles – us
Cable TV came to India in the early 90s. It was welcomed with much fun-fare and excitement. Not that Doordarshan was any bad. Shows such as Hum Log, Buniyaad, Nukkad, Ramayan, Mr. Yogi, Karamchand, Byomkesh Bakshi, the ever popular Chitrahaar, and the unforgettable Shaktimaan, the Indian superhero (they could’ve cast Mr. Vajpayee as Shaktimaan as he was just as wrinkled and slow), did rather well.
But our jaws dropped on learning that cable TV offered more than 200 channels. Along came the beautiful world of American Sitcoms. And oh what a wonderful world it was – Brady’s Bunch, Small Wonder, Wonder Years, Dr. Doogie Howser, Silver Spoons, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Different Strokes, the wonderful company of Friends and other such great shows. Here, how can I not mention the cult show Baywatch, which forever etched Pamela Anderson and Yasmin Bleeth in my heart? Also, opening our mind and stretching our imagination like never before were the barrage of movie channels like Star Movies and HBO showing everything from sexy Demi Moore in Striptease to Sharon Stone’s bold portrayal of a psychopathic serial killer in Basic Instinct.
For most of us it was like being let loose in the Disneyland of skin-shows. The late night movies became a rage and many a students would stay up on the pretext of studying for exams. Parents were the most impressed. ‘My son stays up till 2 a.m.’
However, when the results came, the first thing they did was to discontinue cable, only temporarily though, because by this time parents were addicted to it too. It was a strong, intoxicating drug overpowering the strictest of principled men and women.
Sex-craved teenagers looking for an appropriate medium to satisfy their raging hormones were showered upon with titillating gifts (like Oprah’s famous Holiday Giveaways) – DVD players were invented (one could rent any damn movie and watch it when parents weren’t home: Shaitan Auntie was one such popular flick that showcased a particularly loose auntie who did all kinds of favours), computers with internet connection came (desibaba.com – the Indian playboy had thousands of hits everyday), international magazines came (oh, penthouse, how we still love thee).
All was good in Alice in Wonderland till Censor Board decided to play Krur Singh and started sticking morality into our noses.
‘You should not see that. It is against our culture. Hey ram, ram.’
‘So what if you’re an adult?’
‘So what if you can vote, marry, or book a hotel room without supervision?’
‘You will do as told. No bad TV means, no bad TV.’
So the censor board went around brandishing their scissors like a gardener in an unkempt backyard full of wild bushes and creepers. Snick, snick, snick, they went. Gradually, Star Movies and HBO only broadcasted movies made for 15 year olds and if at all a sex-scene slipped past their Only-for-India eyes, they went for a commercial break just as the hero came too close to the heroine, leaving the audiences’ frenzied heartbeats, and burning loins restless and unsatisfied. FTV modified their content too and gone were the wild days of Rio De Janiero festivals where naked women danced to samba beats. Gone were days of late-night parties where nudity was as prevalent as slum kids shitting on Indian roadsides.
However, cable operators were at that time on the customer’s side and hence sneaked in a Russian beauty called TB6 Mockba, an awesome channel that showed playboy models strutting their stuff, and that too very intentionally, on Saturday nights after around 1 am or so, thinking, Of course Krur Singh must be asleep – but what they didn’t know was, that bugger was up too secretly ogling at the hot models. And soon after, and not without warning, the channel was banned. Of course, we can’t watch shows like these. Our fragile minds are so impressionable, and obviously we have no maturity.
Thankfully, DVDs continued to be produced. Chamiya and Chamiya 2 did rather well. And internet continued to entertain.
Now just when I’d made peace with the fact that yes, any skin-show or dirty words, will either make me jump on women or influence me to add those colourful words to my vocabulary respectively, I noticed a peculiar thing one day as I was surfing channels. Wedding Crashers was playing on Star Movies. The characters were doing their thing, but I realised something was distracting me. Upon close scrutiny I discovered that there were subtitles at the bottom on the screen. I thought, it was a mistake perhaps and switched to HBO. Same shit. I go to WB. Same shit. And this is when I realised I am the modern imbecile. Of course I don’t understand English and their oh-so-hard accents. Cable came to India in the 1990s, and after twenty years of being in this country, they realised it only recently, Shoot. This is India, the poverty stricken nation with illiterates that (just a minor detail) has a booming BPO industry, IT experts, and world-renowned professors and scientists.
Actually I don’t blame them. The entire West is ignorant. Recently, I met with an American Professor with the purpose of interviewing him. As I made to leave he said, ‘Your English is excellent. You must have learnt it abroad.’ I was too mad to say anything, just nodded and left. I encountered the same idiocy in Australia as well, and I said, ‘No, I haven’t lived abroad. I learnt all my “English” in India, my motherland.’
Now if only Star and HBO will stop subtitling their movies, or if we are that stupid, please pack your bags and leave.
Gow thoo China
But our jaws dropped on learning that cable TV offered more than 200 channels. Along came the beautiful world of American Sitcoms. And oh what a wonderful world it was – Brady’s Bunch, Small Wonder, Wonder Years, Dr. Doogie Howser, Silver Spoons, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Different Strokes, the wonderful company of Friends and other such great shows. Here, how can I not mention the cult show Baywatch, which forever etched Pamela Anderson and Yasmin Bleeth in my heart? Also, opening our mind and stretching our imagination like never before were the barrage of movie channels like Star Movies and HBO showing everything from sexy Demi Moore in Striptease to Sharon Stone’s bold portrayal of a psychopathic serial killer in Basic Instinct.
For most of us it was like being let loose in the Disneyland of skin-shows. The late night movies became a rage and many a students would stay up on the pretext of studying for exams. Parents were the most impressed. ‘My son stays up till 2 a.m.’
However, when the results came, the first thing they did was to discontinue cable, only temporarily though, because by this time parents were addicted to it too. It was a strong, intoxicating drug overpowering the strictest of principled men and women.
Sex-craved teenagers looking for an appropriate medium to satisfy their raging hormones were showered upon with titillating gifts (like Oprah’s famous Holiday Giveaways) – DVD players were invented (one could rent any damn movie and watch it when parents weren’t home: Shaitan Auntie was one such popular flick that showcased a particularly loose auntie who did all kinds of favours), computers with internet connection came (desibaba.com – the Indian playboy had thousands of hits everyday), international magazines came (oh, penthouse, how we still love thee).
All was good in Alice in Wonderland till Censor Board decided to play Krur Singh and started sticking morality into our noses.
‘You should not see that. It is against our culture. Hey ram, ram.’
‘So what if you’re an adult?’
‘So what if you can vote, marry, or book a hotel room without supervision?’
‘You will do as told. No bad TV means, no bad TV.’
So the censor board went around brandishing their scissors like a gardener in an unkempt backyard full of wild bushes and creepers. Snick, snick, snick, they went. Gradually, Star Movies and HBO only broadcasted movies made for 15 year olds and if at all a sex-scene slipped past their Only-for-India eyes, they went for a commercial break just as the hero came too close to the heroine, leaving the audiences’ frenzied heartbeats, and burning loins restless and unsatisfied. FTV modified their content too and gone were the wild days of Rio De Janiero festivals where naked women danced to samba beats. Gone were days of late-night parties where nudity was as prevalent as slum kids shitting on Indian roadsides.
However, cable operators were at that time on the customer’s side and hence sneaked in a Russian beauty called TB6 Mockba, an awesome channel that showed playboy models strutting their stuff, and that too very intentionally, on Saturday nights after around 1 am or so, thinking, Of course Krur Singh must be asleep – but what they didn’t know was, that bugger was up too secretly ogling at the hot models. And soon after, and not without warning, the channel was banned. Of course, we can’t watch shows like these. Our fragile minds are so impressionable, and obviously we have no maturity.
Thankfully, DVDs continued to be produced. Chamiya and Chamiya 2 did rather well. And internet continued to entertain.
Now just when I’d made peace with the fact that yes, any skin-show or dirty words, will either make me jump on women or influence me to add those colourful words to my vocabulary respectively, I noticed a peculiar thing one day as I was surfing channels. Wedding Crashers was playing on Star Movies. The characters were doing their thing, but I realised something was distracting me. Upon close scrutiny I discovered that there were subtitles at the bottom on the screen. I thought, it was a mistake perhaps and switched to HBO. Same shit. I go to WB. Same shit. And this is when I realised I am the modern imbecile. Of course I don’t understand English and their oh-so-hard accents. Cable came to India in the 1990s, and after twenty years of being in this country, they realised it only recently, Shoot. This is India, the poverty stricken nation with illiterates that (just a minor detail) has a booming BPO industry, IT experts, and world-renowned professors and scientists.
Actually I don’t blame them. The entire West is ignorant. Recently, I met with an American Professor with the purpose of interviewing him. As I made to leave he said, ‘Your English is excellent. You must have learnt it abroad.’ I was too mad to say anything, just nodded and left. I encountered the same idiocy in Australia as well, and I said, ‘No, I haven’t lived abroad. I learnt all my “English” in India, my motherland.’
Now if only Star and HBO will stop subtitling their movies, or if we are that stupid, please pack your bags and leave.
Gow thoo China
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